


Another Star In The Night Sky

by leviosuga



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Barely any dialogue, Hanahaki AU, Soulmate AU, i tried so hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 22:00:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16395884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leviosuga/pseuds/leviosuga
Summary: In a world where the last thing your soulmate says to you is imprinted on your skin, Junhui and Minghao met in unexpected circumstances.





	Another Star In The Night Sky

**Author's Note:**

> this is super experimental and entirely unbeta-ed so please bear with me!

Junhui knew meeting Minghao was never supposed to happen. They were unplanned and different sides of the same coin, they weren’t meant to know each other, to even share a smile.

He knew this when he first saw Minghao at a college class, one he didn’t even take part in, purely because he entered the wrong classroom. He was shy and apologized more times than anyone in the room could count. 

He left frantically and he left flustered, but Junhui had fixated on him the moment he had stepped in. All golden and bright, his presence being the only clear thing in Jun’s hazy days. 

It had all been a misunderstanding, something they had both gone without. And after that Jun could not get enough. Minghao was all he’d focus on, he’d see peeks of his dark hair around corridors and searched for his view for longer than he’d like to admit.

So, to be fair, it’s not like their friendship was an accident. They hadn’t bumped into each other on one simple occasion, they hadn’t created their conversation out of thin air. Jun didn’t know what it was about Minghao, but he was more than Jun had felt in months. He was the color at the end of monochrome days. 

With this realization, they decided to meet up every day at the same little park. Nothing too extravagant, but comfortable. They warmed up into each other in a matter of weeks. Their interactions were like perfect puzzles, what one didn’t say the other would add. Minghao was a shining star behind dark clouds and Jun did everything he could to see the boy more often.

He couldn’t exactly pinpoint when his platonic desire turned into romantic, when he started thinking more about Minghao’s touch instead of his words, when he’d close his eyes and would only see the smile he had grown so accostumed to.

He couldn’t exactly pinpoint when he started staring at Minghao’s soulmate mark, ‘Choose me’, wondering who was the unlucky person that would have Minghao and then lose him. 

Minghao mentioned this with him once. He had painted nails and he was dragging them against his forearm, huffing. 

“It sucks that we can’t know who it is until it’s over, huh?” Was all he had said. He seemed so concentrated and strained. Jun could almost see a whirlwind running around Minghao’s head, thousands of thoughts going through him. 

Jun had avoided anything about his soulmate for years. He had always been afraid of death, and having the words ‘I love you’ forever on him only made him more terrified. 

At least that was his main concern when he was a kid, nowadays he’d just look at his mark and match it to Minghao’s. Thinking maybe, maybe, maybe, how would they add up? How would they come together with each other for one final moment? 

Jun tried hard to never get his hopes up. Even when Minghao would look at him with the utmost love and when two years had gone by and Minghao still seemed shy from holding Jun’s hand. Even when Minghao told Jun he loved him after a drunk night out, Jun didn’t let himself create any expectations. 

Even when Minghao spent an entire afternoon crying into Jun’s shoulder, locks of hair sprawled on his collarbones. Even when the sun hit Minghao’s teary eyes and he looked like nothing less than a painting, did Jun allow himself to confess about any feelings he felt.

Seven months after this, they had decided to go to a museum, the most popular one in town. As much as it wasn’t Jun’s thing, he agreed, just to see that smile. 

It had been the worst decision of his life. Minghao had worn a blue sweater and ripped jeans. It wouldn’t have been much of a problem, but he had decided to apply shiny light blue eyeshadow on his eyes, and glossy lipstick and it was all too much. 

Specially when everything made him so excited. Jun tried to focus on the surrealist paintings and the pretty portraits but all he could see was Minghao. How his eyes glowed just like his lips when he saw art he really enjoyed, how he spoke softer around paintings, as if he was afraid they would break. He’d look at it all with nothing but passion and utmost respect, Jun had never seen anything like it. Minghao had never looked at anything like that, at anyone. Like it was beautiful and fragile yet he wanted to get even more.

So when they were walking home, scrolling through their phone for pictures they had taken together on the same day, Jun had to do the irresistible.

He had stopped in front of him, making the boy come to a halt. The night sky behind him looked like his home, like he belonged there amonst the other stars. 

Jun moved ever so slightly until their lips met, and all he could feel was the taste of strawberry and vanilla gloss. 

It only took Minghao seconds for him to kiss back, fingers tangling in Jun’s hair and tugging and pulling and desperately needing more.

It ended as soon as it started, Minghao pushing away and staring at the ground. He had hidden his entire hands inside the sleeves of his sweater, he was trying to curl up until Jun couldn’t see him anymore.

“I-I can’t... I’m afraid I’ll lose you if we do this.” His voice was like glass and it cut through Jun and opened up a void inside him, for the first time in ages he didn’t feel whole, the puzzle he and Minghao had built together was torn apart.

He didn’t have the confidence to speak so he didn’t, and he watched the boy of his dreams walk home alone, being further and further out of reach until his silhouette disappeared completely.

Jun didn’t go after him. When did he ever chase the things he wanted? When did he ever have the confidence to create the future he wanted for himself?

He simply lied down on the chilly sidewalk until his entire body had chills, and he looked up. He searched for constellations and maybe a new star, in case it was where Minghao had run off, in case he had used the dark of the sky as a blanket and hid until the sun came up. 

Junhui didn’t realize he was crying until a tear tickled his cheek. He stood up and walked home, deflated and confused. He knew Minghao was something different, ethereal. He knew Minghao could take up more space than hundreds of people could and he knew his heart was his now. 

It was that night, awake until it was morning, that Jun first felt his lungs itch. 

Nothing changed between the two, the tension was so big it wasn’t even noticeable and they understood that they would not touch on the night before any more. 

Only thing Minghao had said about it was that as he walked home, he bumped into a guy. A guy whose pitch black hair and golden skin were captivating. Minghao spoke about him for longer than he had ever spoken about Jun. He spent five minutes describing their three minute conversation, how he was handed a phone number and how his name was Mingyu. 

Jun pretended to care about such flirty gossip, but inside him the void was growing bigger, scratching away anything that he had worked so hard to build. 

Minghao wasn’t any more distant. They didn’t fall apart, they didn’t do anything. That was the worst part of all.

And Jun stayed silent. When he met Mingyu for the first time and he was too sweet for Jun to feel jealous. Even when Minghao described their first date at a park, a park that wasn’t extravagant but was comfortable. 

Maybe if Jun had spoken up he wouldn’t have flowers tugging at him until they were slipping out, ever so delicately flowing in the wind unlike his hoarse throat and chapped lips. 

The three of them hung out often enough until it was only ever the three. Junhui and Minghao never having time alone anymore. He couldn’t tell if it was positive or not. He felt like he was drifting further away from his best friend, but at least the flowers were easy to hide. 

It worsened fast on one said day, where they had decided to eat at a café. Minghao and Mingyu sat on the same side, and Jun faced the two. 

He wasn’t left out of any conversation, both of them too kind to do such a thing. But he saw the changes. He saw how Minghao scooted closer to him so they’d have less space between each other. He noticed how there was a new smile sporting Minghao’s face, one Jun had never seen before, reserved only for him. Reserved only for Mingyu.

Yet what hurt most, what truly ripped everything apart, what ended everything Jun still had, was how Minghao looked at him.

Last time he had seen such a stare, such soft glances, was at the museum. 

Minghao didn’t need art. He had finally found his new paintings, the brush strokes he so effortlessly talked about were now the brush strokes that painted Mingyu’s pink tinted cheeks and then adoration Minghao so obviously felt towards the canvases was now the adoration plastered on his face for the boy next to him.

Jun had said his goodbyes and ran home. He shoved himself into the tightest corner of his bathroom and sobbed. His soulmate mark was practically yelling at him, telling him to stop being foolish enough as to love someone that wasn’t his.   
He had seen Mingyu’s mark. ‘Love you too.’ A perfect match to Minghao’s. A question and an answer, a start and a finish.

Jun’s constructed happiness crashed to the ground and his mark was nothing but the scar of that. It was the proof that he didn’t belong there, that he had shoved himself into Minghao’s life since the start. He wasn’t made to be alongside Minghao, he just tried to change fate hoping it wanted to be changed. 

He coughed and he gagged until he threw up enough flowers to cover his tiled floor. 

The flowers would be beautiful if they weren’t bloody, if he didn’t feel drowsy from how weak his body was.

The couple had noticed it too. He was so much skinnier, his arms the same size as his wrists and his clothes looser than he cared to admit.   
Jun brushed it aside as a simple cold. They didn’t question it, simply told him to take care and to eat well. His award winning smile was enough to convice them perfectly into not acknowledging how his voice was deep and raspy. 

For months it worked like this. His schedule was to have his classes, meet up with the two, go home and vomit until his stomach was empty and there was a garden in the toilet.

One day it was bad enough for him to pass out. He woke up almost suffocating, his lungs were blocked and he was hyperventilating. He could practically feel the roots of ingrown flowers piercing his walls and shredding his organs and it was excruciating.

It lasted almost an hour like this. 

Jun knew he was running out of time, and he couldn’t possibly consider doing surgery and losing the person he was in love with. These feelings were toxic but these feelings were his.   
He was shaking from crying as he texted Minghao. ‘I might skip this week. Ill.’

He didn’t wait for a reply until he climbed into bed. He recalled when he and Minghao would cuddle under the same blankets, sharing stories that were entirelt theirs, no one else’s. 

It felt so empty now. Minghao’s clothes weren’t thrown around his chair anymore, they had another chair to be launched at. His school books weren’t prepped up on the table, all on Mingyu’s dorm now. 

Jun decided to no longer think about it, and simply accept what he had become. 

He was nothing but a vessel for the disease growing inside him, his brain was nothing but a shell to hold memories only he and Minghao shared. Jun’s heart and lungs were nothing but a place to store everything he felt ranging from love to anger to acceptance. 

Alone he was and alone he would stay.   
Two days passed until Minghao visited. He apologized the same way he apologized when they first met, desperate and genuine and he said he hadn’t read the message until then. 

He arrived at such unfortunate timing though, where Jun was using his last bits of strength to hold onto the toilet to not fall down, flowers upon flowers crawling out of him. Ripped and crimson red. They weren’t beautiful, they were just sad.   
Minghao could barely make a sound as he rushed to Jun, hugging him and crying to the sound of his best friend dying. 

“Jun... Jun please.” He begged, he didn’t know what he was begging for, maybe he was just doing it to deafen out the sound of choking echoing in the bathroom. 

He had seen Jun hurt before, but not like this. Never like this. He was skin and bones and the amount of blood he was coughing out surely wasn’t good for him. 

He coughed out one last petal until he let go and fell entirely into Minghao’s arms. 

His voice was nothing but a mere murmur of pain and heavy breaths. “When you could choose the two. Why did you choose him?”

Minghao was taken aback. As much as he feigned ignorance, he knew what was going on. He knew but it was too late. “W-“

“Why didn’t you c-choose..” He didn’t need to finish it, both of them knew this. 

“Junnie...” The other boy was sniffing and he was heavy, he felt heavy and he felt nothing else.   
“Please, Minghao.”   
“Jun, w-what’s going on?”   
“Please. Choose me.”  
Jun’s eyes closed and his head slipped to the side. His last breath sounded forced out, his chest deflated entirely and he was so evidently gone.   
He yelled, he yelled and he yelled. He held Jun close to him until he was practically squeezing the boy until he woke up. It didn’t work. 

He was gone. 

Minghao’s broken sobs were a cry for help, it was as if the entire town had gone silent, just to hear his screams.  
“Jun please, please wake up.”  
“Junnie this isn’t a joke.”  
Nothing. The petals were rotting fast.  
“Jun.” 

The bathroom was making him claustraphobic, everything was closing up on him.  
“Wake up, please.”  
Jun still didn’t move an inch.   
“I love you.”

And so Minghao accepted what came to him. Alone he met Jun, and alone he saw Jun die.

**Author's Note:**

> this is dedicated to my friend who said they hate hanahaki and sad soulmate aus so i made their dream come true <3
> 
> my twitter: @afstpace


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